Orlando television anchor Martha Sugalski has been savoring an unusual gift the last year, even as she counts down the days to when that present ends.

“I’ve had this gift of being able to solely focus on my family. Those gifts don’t come around every day,” said Sugalski, who worked at WESH-Channel 2 for eight years before leaving the local NBC affiliate in July last year. She was at South Florida’s WTVJ-Ch. 6 before leaving for Orlando in 2006

“I’ve been a working mom for 20-something years,” she said. “Someone can tell you, ‘Hey, you get to have a year off with your children and, hey, come back, we want you on the anchor desk.’ It’s a gift to be able to sit at home with your babies.”

That someone is most likely ABC affiliate WFTV-Channel 9, although Sugalski isn’t commenting beyond saying she looks forward to Aug. 6, when her future will be revealed. A noncompete clause has kept her off the air for a year, and she has made the most of that time.

She has luxuriated in the days with her husband, businessman Robert Reich, and their triplets, who recently turned 2. Sugalski could spend more time with her three older children — Chase, 21; Maxwell, 17; and Spencer, 14 — from an earlier marriage. The family’s home in Longwood is a bustling place that will wear out visitors.

Yet Sugalski, 45, describes herself as in the best shape of her life. She always has made exercise a priority, loves CrossFit and credits working out five days a week and eating right.

Sugalski cited only one negative to her routine: her cooking. After two months of her slow-cooker recipes, Reich announced he was taking over.

“He’s fabulous,” she said. Why is she such a bad cook? “I just don’t get it.”

Reich enjoyed the past year as well.

“It has been unusual in that Martha is such a career-oriented person, to see her downshift to a total mom role,” he said. “At the same time, it’s been great.”

She described her approach to the triplets — sons Heaton and Wilder and daughter Holden — as working to stay ahead of them. “You have to keep them busy,” she said. “We go to gym classes. I’ve taken them to the zoo.”

All the triplets are thriving. Holden weighed less than 3 pounds at birth and spent almost six weeks in neonatal intensive care. But now she keeps pace with her brothers.

“She did physical therapy twice a week … to help her walking and balancing,” Sugalski said. “They moved her to once a week, and she’s about to graduate. She’s doing so well.”

Sugalski and Reich, who met on a blind date in 2007 and married in 2009, have been frank about their struggles to have children. She took fertility drugs and suffered a miscarriage in 2011. They were overjoyed by the triplets’ arrival in 2013 and filled with gratitude that the babies escaped injury before Christmas last year when a gas-leak explosion devastated the nursery.

“We could have lost them,” Sugalski said. “They would have been napping in their crib. For some reason, I bathed them early. I had them upstairs playing in the playroom.”

They were far from the nursery, where the explosion embedded hunks of drywall in their cribs. The explosion puts everything in perspective, she said.

Since being off the air, Sugalski has kept a high profile on social media, talking about her family and the news. (She has more than 19,000 followers on Twitter and nearly 55,000 on Facebook.)

“I’m still an anchor. It’s in my blood,” she said. “I’m still engaged in what’s happening in our community.”

She won her first Emmy in December for WESH’s breaking-news coverage of a day-care crash in Winter Park. Although she will happily pose with the statuette, she says she knows she didn’t do it alone and that being a mom helped her on the story.

“You’re only as solid as your news team,” she said. “Everyone was on their game that day.”

Stepping away from the anchor desk was difficult. “I couldn’t watch TV for a little bit,” she said, adding that she has no regrets about being away because of her time with the triplets.

“I know that’s coming to an end,” she said, citing the number of Thursdays until the August announcement about her new employer.

She may switch stations, but she won’t change her look.

“I’m happy with how I look now. I don’t think I’m going to change it. I’m not cutting all my hair off,” she said. “I am who I am.”

PHOTO Martha Sugalski has luxuriated in the days with her husband, businessman Robert Reich, and their triplets, who recently turned 2. (Red Huber / Orlando Sentinel)

Growing up in the Keys, Mehgan Heaney-Grier made playgrounds out of the islands and the oceans. So maybe it’s no surprise she grew up to become a championship free diver, setting a world record in 1996 by reaching 165 feet on one breath.

Now 37, Heaney-Grier has a new line for her resume: treasure hunter. In fact, her new career has been documented in a Discovery Channel show called Treasure Quest: Snake Island.

The show follows Heaney-Grier and a team of explorers as they try to find the Treasure of the Trinity, a legendary lost cache of Incan gold that may be valued at hundreds of millions of dollars.

Heaney-Grier’s team believed the treasure to be hidden on Snake Island, a preserve about 100 miles off the coast of Brazil. It’s called Snake Island for a reason – the small spit of land is said to be home to thousands of deadly vipers.

“The best description I’ve been able to come up with is that it was epic,” Heaney-Grier says. “There was adventure, there were issues with the team dynamic and close quarters for a long time in dangerous situations.”

She says her days in the Keys helped prepare her for the adventure, especially considering her background with the “salty pirates” of Monroe County. “I love the water, I love science and I love getting out there and getting my hands dirty.”

And did her team find the treasure? “Well, you know, I can neither confirm nor deny. You’ll just have to watch.”

Treasure Quest: Snake Island premieres at 10 p.m. July 17 on the Discovery Channel. Click https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GN3g9G8FMQQ for a preview.

Three coworkers trailed my friend Jonathan when he walked out of the office tower where he works in downtown Fort Lauderdale. They were car guys, coming to ogle the double-parked Alfa Romeo 4C.

There were a lot of “wows,” and somebody called it the prettiest car he’d ever seen.

Painted the color of an opera singer’s lipstick, the 4C is a collection of rolling Dolomite hills. Mountains rise over the front wheels, and plateaus climb stylishly over the rear end. It looks lower than any car made nowadays, and with all those curvy cliffs it looks like a shrunken Ferrari. It’s impossible to find a single inch that’s not worthy of being on Instagram.

“I want one,” someone said lustily.

This is the kind of reaction you get everywhere with the 4C. This is Alfa Romeo’s first foray back into America in two decades, and it’s an Italian masterpiece. It’s the obvious successor to the car from The Graduate, the car you should drive to stop your true love from marrying the wrong man.

Sure, the trunk is laughably tiny; it’s loud and often uncomfortable, and, no, you probably don’t want to take it to work every day. It should occupy that extra spot in your garage, the one reserved for the Sunday-morning sports car.

The good news if you need to convince a significant other about buying a third car: The cost is relatively manageable. It starts at $53,900, and even fully loaded with race exhaust and suspension it’s still under $70,000. Competitors like the Porsche Cayman or Jaguar F-type offer loads more comforts – the Alfa’s radio for instance looks like an after-market special, and forget about luxury options such as heated seats. But you could spend three or four, maybe even 10 times as much, and not buy a car this much fun.

Before getting lunch, Jonathan and I took a joy ride. An inch over 6 feet, Jonathan just barely fit. With a huge door well, getting in required making a yogalike move of putting in a foot first, then dropping his butt, before careening his final leg into the tight compartment. He then slid the seat – which has no reclining function – all the way back, with just enough room to fit his legs. The low-slung roof grazed the top of his head.

As he took Andrews Avenue south, Jonathan wore a devilish grin every time he hit the accelerator. “This thing is amazing,” he kept saying. Loudly, actually, because talking in the 4C is done over a constant howl. On nearly every shift from the automatic transmission, the exhaust cackles and barks. The turbo charger, seemingly directly behind the driver’s head, hisses like a cornered cobra using a loudspeaker. You might hate all that noise, but if you like cars, it’s a Milanese symphony.

“I know where we can go,” Jonathan said, as he accelerated from the light at Andrews and State Road 84. There was a bit of foreboding in his voice. The road took a jog to the left before getting to I-595, and Jonathan pushed the accelerator to the floor. The Alfa did nothing but turn, no body roll, no back-tire spin, nothing but pure handling.

That is what this car is all about: Its insanely low weight, at under 2,500 pounds, means acceleration that’ll leave your breath at the last light. The four-cylinder may only have 237 horses, but the lean frame makes it a rocket. The steering is so accurate you’ll feel as if you can handle any turn, zipping through 90-degree rights at lights.

That steering does have a downside. In an effort to keep weight down and preserve that go-cart handling, there’s no power steering. From a stop, a U turn requires a hand-over-hand maneuver. Once at speed, though, the wheel lightens, and the accuracy of the steering rivals any other car on the road.

We entered the warehouse district ringing the airport, and Jonathan turned us onto our destination. He explained that it was part of the old loop road around the airport. It’s now just a two-lane strip of asphalt with little around but slash pines and cabbage palms.

“Will you record this?” Jonathan said, handing me his cell phone. That should’ve been a warning. He directed me to put the phone up to the speedometer, a stunning digital display straight out of a video game.

Jonathan put one foot on the brake and another on the accelerator, which initiates the car’s launch control. The tachometer held at 4,000 rpms as he lifted the brake. The engine isn’t much without the turbo working, so that initial jump feels like hesitation. But then comes all the power in a hurry. The Alfa’s engine roared. We were at 60 in a heartbeat.

Three digits came after that, and I saw 105. Then I stopped the record button before asking my buddy to slow down, not wanting to document my fear of what would’ve come next.

“Holy cow!” Jonathan said, as the auto gearbox downshifted back to reasonable speeds.

There aren’t many cars out there that perform like that. Sure, plenty of them can go fast and handle well, but this is a car that will bring you to exclamations of blasphemy. The Alfa Romero 4C is that rare thing, a car that looks prettier, handles better and seems quicker than any other vehicle on the road.

While bathing-suit season lasts year round in South Florida, summertime – when we have the beaches almost all to ourselves again – is a time to reassess. Are we sticking with the fitness plans we may have set months ago on New Year’s Day?

Fitness professionals know better than anyone: There’s nothing magical about a resolution when it comes to health and wellness goals. Feeling your best has to be a year-round endeavor.

Simple tweaks like parking your car farther from your destination, swapping the elevator for a few flights of stairs and surrounding yourself with like-minded people can jumpstart any fitness routine.

In other words: Yes, there’s still time to look great this summer.

Idalis Velazquez is a Coral Springs fitness trainer, a brand ambassador for Target’s C9 fitness line by Champion, and one of five finalists in 2013’s “The Next Fitness Star,” sponsored by Women’s Health magazine. The wellness website greatest.com just named her “ivfitness” Instagram account one of the 25 most inspiring fitness feeds – right up there with Nike Running, The North Face, Misty Copeland and GoPro.

A former high-level track competitor, Velazquez, 31, had hit a physical low-point in her 20s after being sidelined by sports injuries and a health scare during her second pregnancy.

Exhausted from endless doctor visits and “hating how unhealthy” she felt, the former top-ranked athlete set out to reclaim her well-being. She now posts her personal training regimen online every day – at-home exercises that most anyone can follow.

“I got tired of listening to everything I couldn’t do, so I educated myself and found my own way to get stronger and fitter than before,” she says.

Velazquez says the best decision she made was shifting her focus to “getting stronger” rather than fixating on how she looked.

Recognizing that our “personal best” will shift from day to day, particularly as we age, also helped Velazquez let go of unrealistic expectations – a surefire way to doom any fitness plan.

Her favorite tips:

Instead of concentrating on weight loss, focus on skills. “Enjoy the process of learning,” she says, whether it’s how to use a new piece of gym equipment or mastering the perfect squat.

“Change can be hard. Not everyone in your life is always going to be supportive. Stay on track every day by surrounding yourself with people who have similar goals.”

“Get out of your comfort zone. Even if you are unfamiliar with certain workouts, or you lack confidence in your physical abilities, remember, the more you do something – the more you practice – the more your body will respond. You will get better every day, but only if you practice.”

“Workout outdoors whenever possible.” It feeds the soul, she says.

“Nutrition is always the hardest to change. Not enough people view food as fuel. Think of it like this: The way we treat ourselves reflects how we feel about ourselves. Don’t put junk in.”

“When it comes to weight loss, always look at the small picture,” she says. “If the plan is to lose 30 lbs., start with 10.” Stay on course by boosting energy and confidence with small achievements every day.

Finally, if emotional eating and bad decisions are out of control, Velazquez recommends viewing the take-no-prisoners documentaries about Big Food and processed junk, Hungry For Change, Vegucated and Fed Up. These films “make us reconsider just what we’re putting into our systems.”

We asked three of South Florida’s fitness pros how to get moving quickly, how they maintain their routines – and how we can, too.

Dennis Payton, a former high school athlete in football and basketball, is a Boca Raton-based fitness trainer who is buoyed by his clients. “I love to see that light in your eyes when you get your goal!”

Payton, 47, still boasts rock-hard abs and chiseled biceps. A former restaurant manager, he had just a single client when he gave up a steady salary years ago to venture back into the fitness field.

He still remembers how “terrifying” it felt to relinquish what was safe and familiar in favor of striking out on his own in a new career.

“Sometimes life takes us down paths,” he says with a smile. So he’s very much a fan of leaving one’s comfort zone when it comes to fitness as well.

Payton’s favorite ways to get clients on track quickly – and keep them there – include:

New start, new you. “Begin by putting everything you did before behind you,” he says. “When clients come to me with too much baggage, myths or just stories they may have heard about fitness, they tend to be weighed down by it and it hinders their progress.”

“Start with a fresh commitment to your goal. Sit down and really ask yourself, can I commit to this? It won’t always be easy. Make up your mind to do it.”

“Focus, like a laser. I can’t stress enough how important it is to stay focused. There are three major components to staying fit all the time: Nutrition, cardiovascular health and strength, brought about by weight and resistance training. Find out what you need to do in each area, and focus.”

“Be consistent. Just as you plan meals ahead of time, plan workouts ahead of time, so there’s no guessing. Know what you’re going to eat; know what your workout is going to be.”

“Have fun.” Whether it’s rediscovering a sport you enjoyed as a child or simply pairing up with a friend and a trainer who creates quick contests such as relay races in the park, Payton says that doing something other than repetitive gym routines can be the answer for many.

Payton also believes in the classic “one day at a time” approach that has kept millions of people who overindulge in food, drugs and alcohol “sober” for life. “Take it all one day at a time – one meal at a time, and one workout at time.”

Barb Thomas, who has a master’s degree in exercise science and is co-owner of the Orange Theory Fitness studio in Plantation (the busiest OTF location in the United States), is a former NCAA swimmer and lifetime athlete. Her approach to keeping the rest of us fit is to keep it simple.

The Orange Theory model – interval training for 26 class members guided by a fitness pro – is easy to follow and leaves almost nothing to chance.

Hour-long sessions include running or brisk walking on a treadmill, weight training, rowing and other exercises for strength and balance.

Routines are explained in advance and during the workout – and are also posted on screens throughout the studio.

Heart rates are monitored so you can see whether you’re pushing yourself too hard, or not enough. Members are also monitored visually by trainers, who gently make form corrections as needed.

Occasionally there are high-performance training weeks, musically themed workouts, weight-loss challenges, rowing and running contests – even classes on major holidays, so there’s rarely an excuse to over-indulge and just sit around.

Thomas’s approach to keeping things simple extends to her tips as well. She is a fan of the easy-to-remember acronym “BeFit.”

B. “Believe” that it’s never too late to make a change to your health.

E. “Exercise” hard. Sweat every day, and get your heart rate up to an age- and fitness-appropriate level.

F.“Find” a program with variety that will keep your interest all year long. Liking what you’re doing in the gym and being interested in it will lead to results.

I. “Include” exercise as one of your daily priorities four to five days per week.

Lucky you if for some reason you missed either the movie in its original release or the later FX Network’s series. No one does sinister and entertaining in one package as well as the Coen Brothers. Bundle up, ’cause it’s darn cold out there, fella.

2.Doctor Zhivago

This classic, five-Oscar winner gets better as the years go by. There’s romance, history, Omar Sharif and Julie Christie. There’s also the very wintry Russian countryside.

3.Lilyhammer

Oh, no, it’s Silvio from The Sopranos in this series made for television, I mean Little Steven, let loose on the sleepy Norwegian town that once hosted the Winter Olympics. Van Zandt shines in this wacky, snowy story.

4.Fortitude

Norway along the Arctic Circle is the frigid setting for this taut mystery series made for British television. Strong performances (Richard Dormer, Stanley Tucci) and a bunch of unpredictable back-country characters enliven a plot that veers into Stephen King territory in the final episodes.

5. Encounters at the End of the World

You can’t get any colder than this for a place where people actually live. Naturally, eccentric German director Werner Herzog would want to go to Antarctica to record the surreal beauty of the icebergs and ice caves, but more important, to find out how the heck the residents ended up there.

6.March of the Penguins

Nobody beats the summer heat better than the penguins in this engaging documentary about the species’ incredibly demanding existence in the frozen wilderness. The original version by French cinematographers gets a makeover for American audiences with narration by Morgan Freeman.

7.The Grey

How could we leave out Alaska, especially chilly when you’ve been tossed out into the wild when your plane crashes? Liam Neeson is as intense as ever in this film, as he and fellow oil men who survive the crash face two enemies: the pitiless cold and stalking wolves.

8.Sister

This film won honors at the Berlin Film Fest and was on the short list for best film Oscar in 2012. A brassy little thief takes care of his attractive but troubled big sister with light-fingered forays among unsuspecting skiers on the glorious Swiss Alps. 9.As Far as My Feet Will Carry Me

Nothing says cold like winter in Siberia. Especially if you’re a prisoner escaping from a Russian Gulag in 1945. The man’s desperate attempt to make it overland all the way back to Europe keeps us on the edge.

10.Deadfall

Beautiful losers race across time near the Canadian border during a blizzard in this thriller. Lots of shivering and wandering in the cold, until the losers stumble into the hearth of an unsuspecting couple, played by Kris Kristofferson and Sissy Spacek.

Two roads diverged ahead in dark woods in North Florida. I took the one so less traveled, I started to wonder if it was even a road.

“I remember the time I took a first date out [here],” my guide, Gary Stogner, laughed. “We turned off the main road [onto this one], and it was dark and foggy and a little spooky, I guess. She must have wondered if this man she’d just met might be an ax murderer, taking her down that country road in the night.”

Crashing off the main road into the dark, I started to wonder if there might be reason for concern, too.

I looked at his business card again.

Gary Stogner. Senior Marketing Director. Visit Tallahassee.

No, I thought. Probably not.

“I tell that story often, as does my [now] girlfriend who was the subject of the adventure on her first trip here,” he said.

No, I thought. Definitely not.

It was dark, foggy and a little spooky on my night out near Tallahassee, on the road so little traveled I’m pretty sure it doubled as a creek bed. There was a slight turn to the left, then a right, then a glow up ahead.

More like a twinkle, actually.

We had reached the “legendary backwoods” Bradfordville Blues Club. The headlights lit up a metal sign post confirming its hallowed station on The Blues Trail from Mississippi here to North Florida. Back when giants B.B. King, Bo Diddley and John Lee Hooker walked the earth.

Garlands of twinkling Christmas lights laced an entranceway that looked like the grounded cabin of a backwoods private jet. Deep bass inside pulsed to get out. A woman with a blonde haystack sat in dim light at a low desk, taking tickets.

“We’ve been expecting y’all,’’ she smiled. “Go on in.’’

Gary led the way into the one-room, cinderblock structure – unchanged, they say, since forever. Bar, over on the left; stage, over on the right.

In between, the Saturday-night mix of town and country folk listened as bluesman Victor Wainwright – the “piana from Savannah” – wailed “Baby, come back home!” in the night. They paired up and danced close on the tiny concrete dance floor, in twinkling Christmas-tree light.

I sat down and thought about other roads I’d followed to their unexpected ends. To the red chile heaven of Rancho de Chimayó in the Sangre de Cristos. To the sunset over the Pacific atop Mount Tamalpais, as soft fog creased San Francisco Bay below. To Burgundy vineyards scented in woodsmoke from the last harvest, kindled to make way for the new.

This was a road like those roads, leading to a place I’ll never forget.

“There’s not many places like this left,” Wainwright chatted outside between sets with the owner of the club, Gary Anton. “I even wrote about it in one of my songs.”

“I did not know that?!” Anton said.

Wainwright, a big man as soft-spoken offstage as he’s loud on, put his head back, closed his eyes, and repeated the lyrics from memory:

“I know a juke joint on the edge of town

Not too classy, a little run down

Dust on the floor, smoke in the air

Your troubles float away when you walk in there

Some are getting loose, some are getting tight

Everybody here is high as a kite

We’re gonna raise a little hell in honky tonk heaven tonight.”

Anton laughed. “Heaven!? I haven’t been drinking that much.’’

Paradise, of one sort or another, often awaits at the end of a summer road. We lead you on five of them this issue, along with some other summertime fun.

When we go to Tallahassee – once before the fall semester, once after the spring – we go to take our son to or from Florida State University. We go to shop for the dorm room at Walmart. For groceries at Trader Joe’s. For shoes at Governor’s Square Mall.

When we go to Tallahassee, at the hard end of a six- or seven-hour road trip from South Florida, we go to lift boxes from our car and carry them up flights of dorm stairs. When we leave Tallahassee, we carry them down flights of dorm stairs and back into our car for the hard road trip home. We do this after driving 467 miles up; we do this before driving 467 miles back.

At the end of these days in Tallahassee, because we are too tired for independent thought of our own, we follow our son to his favorite restaurant in town, Mr. Roboto. It is fast, the red curry is delicious and the beer is cold. It is not fine dining, but it’s close to campus and an easy walk from the bus station – which makes for interesting people watching on the outdoor patio. (And sometimes, interesting people from the bus station watch us on the outdoor patio, too).

These are our days, when we go to Tallahassee. They are all business. They are all a blur.

We never go to Tallahassee for fun.

But that changed recently. Changed when our sophomore-becoming-a-junior son moved from a dorm on campus to a furnished apartment off campus. For the first time, we did not have to carry boxes up stairs or down. Everything was already there for him.

For a change, we had time in Tallahassee. We did not have to go shopping at Walmart, or Trader Joe’s or the Governor’s Square Mall. We did not have to eat at the restaurant nearest to campus simply because we were too tired to look anywhere else.

And we found, over a long weekend, that Tallahassee is more than a blur. Tallahassee is an interesting place. An entertaining place. A place worth a drive, even if we were not on a mission to take our son back to school.

We stayed at The Governors Inn, a comfortable hotel (that, fun fact, used to be a stable) a short walk from the Capitol. It’s also near the Tallahassee Downtown Marketplace, where most Saturdays you can start the day with a beignet and shop under Spanish moss-draped oaks for jars of Monticello honey, local produce and warm loaves of Thomasville bread.

We were hungrier than that, so we slipped into the Paisley Café for Liège Belgium waffles – a dish the owner, Kiersten Lee, insists is made with just four ingredients: King Arthur flour, pearl sugar, organic brown eggs and Kerrygold butter. They are as delicious, with a dollop of praline maple syrup, as they are beautiful. “My favorite color,” Lee smiles, “is golden brown.”

We followed the road north out of town to the red-brick main street of nearby Thomasville, Ga., for some antiquing on Broad Street and some Green Hill, Lil’ Moo and Georgia Gouda cheeses (served with raspberry and jalapeño jam) at the Sweet Grass Dairy Cheese Shop. We stopped for hickory and oak-smoked sausage at Bradley’s Country Store, which “stands just as it did in 1927’’ under shady oaks 12 miles out of Tallahassee on the Centerville Road. The four rocking chairs on the front porch were occupied by rockers slowly munching the $5.50 sausage dog, chips and soda special. “Y’all have a good day,’’ Mr. Bradley, the 89-year-old, third-generation Bradley, called on our way back to town. We’d followed the road north, and found the South.

Back in Tallahassee that afternoon, we wandered the well-preserved Goodwood Museum & Gardens, an 1830s-vintage mansion popular today for weddings, with verandas, Spanish-moss-draped oak canopy and enough vintage furniture, porcelain and glassware for a season of Antiques Roadshow. Early copies of Godey’s Lady’s Book 1870, The Adventures ofHuckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer line the bookshelf.

But we had adventures of our own.

We took a midnight run out to the Bradfordville Blues Club – on a country road we’re pretty sure must look like a creek bed in daylight. We listened to Victor Wainwright – the “Piana from Savannah” – howl “Baby, come back home” in the night, as the tiny dance floor filled up tight. We heard The Avett Brothers sing 26 of the SRO crowd’s favorite songs, including a four-song encore, at the new Capital City Amphitheater. We sipped Madison Mules (ginger beer, cucumber, Tito’s Handmade Vodka, lime and agave for sweetness) at Madison Social, a new campus hot spot, within sight of the FSU football stadium. It was a kick.

We found fine dining at Nefetari’s Fine Cuisine & Spirits (Jerk Fettuccine Alfredo, Buddha’s Delight and, unexpectedly, belly dancing); The Front Porch (Crab-Crusted Red Grouper over Spicy Red Beans and Rice, Ribeye over Mashed Red Bliss Potatoes and served, expectedly, on a real front porch) and Cypress Restaurant (Sugar Cane Mopped Rib Eye, Cypress Vegan and, apparently, everybody’s favorite place in Tallahassee for a prom or anniversary date). We watched the shucking at Shell Oyster Bar, too – a former Texaco gas station you might not go to unless you knew it’s where locals go. We understood, after filling up on oysters fresh from Apalachicola Bay, cheese grits and hushpuppies.

And just before heading home, we put a cherry on top of it all at Lofty Pursuits, famous for “Public Displays of Confection” since 1993. We sat at the old-fashioned soda fountain, spooning sundaes – watching soda jerks in green aprons, hats and bow ties make root beer floats, egg creams and hard candy – and, though sugar buzzed, had the presence of mind for an independent thought.

We may have to go to Tallahassee to shop for the apartment at Walmart. For groceries at Trader Joe’s. For shoes at the Governor’s Square Mall.

115 E. Park Ave. (bordered by North Monroe Street, Park Avenue West, Park Avenue East and Adams Street), 850-224-3252, tallahasseedowntown.com. Open 9 a.m.-2 p.m. every Saturday in March through the second weekend in December.

It’s been 45 years since Ali MacGraw and Ryan O’Neal became pop-culture icons, portraying the tragic lovers Jenny and Oliver in the 1970 film classic Love Story.

The movie broke box office records, propelled the two to superstardom and turned MacGraw into the era’s defining example of timeless beauty. Though they became good friends on the set, they never worked together again except for occasional media appearances.

But that’s about to change, finally, as the storied screen duo reunites for the first time in the national tour of Love Letters — the 1989 Broadway stage play about a couple who love deeply but never quite connect.

O’Neal and MacGraw, now 74 and 76, respectively, don’t appear to have that problem.

When they got together last year for a short video piece that was part of The Hollywood Reporter’s 100 Favorite Films series, their magic seemed to leap once again from the screen.

Not long after, the producers of Love Letters called.

For many years the two had lived nearby one another in California — until 1993 when MacGraw’s Malibu home burned to the ground. Unable to find a suitable replacement, she viewed it as a possible sign from the Universe. Maybe it was time to leave Hollywood?

She took what few possessions remained and moved full-time into what was then a get-away home she had in Santa Fe, N.M. Today she does voice-over work for PBS, devotes herself to Yoga and community issues, and visits Los Angeles frequently to see her son, grandson and closest friends.

Lately O’Neal has played Max Keenan on the long-running Fox series Bones. His sometimes-turbulent family life was again laid bare around the time of his 2009 appearance in longtime companion Farrah Fawcett’s sobering cancer documentary, Farrah’s Story. He too has battled various cancers, but says he is feeling well these days.

In 2010, about 15 months after Fawcett’s death, O’Neal was reunited with MacGraw to promote the 40th anniversary of Love Story on The Oprah Winfrey Show. Their manner with one another suggested there might be something more going on, but as O’Neal explained then and now, it has simply been an unrequited crush for decades.

Together by phone from their homes in Malibu and Santa Fe, the two discussed love, chemistry, aging in Hollywood and how they prepared for Love Letters, which makes its first U.S. stop July 21-26 at the Broward Center. In addition to Fort Lauderdale, the Love Letters tour will visit Los Angeles, Detroit, Boston, Dallas and Baltimore, with more cities to be announced.

CITY & SHORE: The video last year for The Hollywood Reporter series really was special.

RYAN O’NEAL: I love this woman.

ALI MACGRAW: We’ve reunited many times since Love Story, and it’s always like that. The chemistry is instant.

RO: I tested for Love Story and I felt there was something right away, and …

AM: … and it showed because everyone knew it right away. They said, ‘That’s the guy,’ and …

RO: … and I’m still the guy.

C&S: Do you always finish each other’s sentences?

RO: Still, to this day.

AM: Yes.C&S: You rehearsed recently in New York.

RO: No.

AM: Yes.

C&S: Well, which was it?

RO: We just ran it.

AM: Yes, we ran it once. We flew in one day and were out the next.

RO: We did it in an interesting way. The director just wanted to hear us do it. So we faced each other and it was very powerful that way, looking at her as she read these letters.

AM: I thought it went really well, didn’t you Ryan?

RO: I thought it was amazing. And I thought, oh this is gonna be fun. I am always asking her to run away with me. And now she will. To nine different cities!C&S: So here you are finally working together again and it’s another piece about doomed love.

AM: I don’t think it’s doomed. Love Letters takes place over so many decades. It’s reality.

RO: She breaks my heart in the story. Over 40 years we had married different people. But we never broke our bond with one another. We never lost contact, or …

AM: … or said what we really felt about each other . . . maybe not even know how we feel until it’s too late.

C&S: Ali, it sounds like you’re very happy in Santa Fe, but like you also enjoy tip-toeing back into show business when you can.

AM: I am thrilled to be invited to play in that sandbox occasionally. And this is going to be joyful because I love being with Ryan. We work so well together. But I love not living in the middle of it, because it intimidates me.C&S: What does it feel like then, being out and about with your natural gray hair in this last year, after a lifetime of being identified with a certain look?

AM: I feel real. It’s about 75 different colors and the front is all white.

RO: Every color has a story.

AM: I live in a community that’s not all about massive plastic surgery and being petrified that you’re no longer 30 years old. It’s tough to get older in Hollywood.

RO: It’ll kill you.

C&S: If someone had told you 45 years ago that you’d be working together today would you have wanted to; would you have believed it?

AM: I would have wanted to, but I wouldn’t have attached any kind of energy to would I believe it or not. I would just think, wow …

RO: . . . lucky us!

C&S: So what is the key to lasting love?

RO: We are the two people you shouldn’t ask, the pair of us.

AM: Love changes shape – that’s what I do know now. And at the risk of sounding like some new-age geek, I think love is more important than anything else. The more one has room in the heart for love, the better life is.

RO: Oh, Ali, that is so nice. I hope you’re writing this down, Deborah.

7, 8, 9 Summer Time Moonlight Sea Turtle Walks, an evening of sea turtle discovery. Nature permitting, participants will watch a 300-pound Loggerhead turtle venture out of the ocean to lay her eggs. The adventure begins at the Museum of Discovery and Science at 9 p.m. with an informative session and then continues to Fort Lauderdale beach. Guests should be prepared to walk up to two miles. 9 years and up only; advance reservations required. $18, members; $20, non-members. Call 954-713-0930 for reservations. Mods.org.

10 Enjoy a summer night in South Florida, a stroll through tranquil gardens, a cold drink, a taiko drum performance and some sushi at the Sushi & Stroll Summer Walk Series. 5:30-8:30 p.m. at the Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens, Delray Beach. $8, adults; $6, children 4-10; free, members and children 3 and under; $2 for taiko performance. Food and drink are additional. 561-495-0233, morikami.org.

15-22Summer Escape Rendezvous to the Bahamas, a weeklong adventure that includes island-hopping in the Abaco Islands, festive dinner parties and activities for the entire family, all to benefit Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital Foundation. Registration required. $1,000 per vessel for up to four people; $100 per additional guest. 561-253-2457, abacos2015.com.

16South Florida’s Taste of the Nation for No Kid Hungry, a culinary benefit dedicated to ending childhood hunger. The event includes silent auctions and gourmet creations from over 50 of South Florida’s top chefs, sommeliers and mixologists. 7 p.m. at the Loews Miami Beach, 1601 Collins Ave. $125, general; $250, VIP (which allows access at 6 p.m.). ce.strength.org/events/south-florida-taste-nation.

18 Come sing along with the movie Frozen as part of Boca Raton’s Summer Series 2015. Blankets and chairs are welcome; chairs will also be available for rent. Food and beverages available for purchase. 8 p.m. at Mizner Park Amphitheater, Boca Raton. 561-544-8600, mizneramphitheater.com.

18-19Wet-n-Wild Weekend, including water slides, water activities and games for all ages, as well as vendors, crafts and activity stations. 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at Flamingo Gardens, 3750 S. Flamingo Road, Davie. $9.95, ages 12+; $6.45, ages 3-11; children 2 or younger and members are free. Narrated tram tour is included with admission. 954-473-2955, flamingogardens.org.

25Cruisin’ Down the River: Historical Adventures of Dreamers & Schemers, a cruise on the New River aboard the Carrie B paddlewheel boat with former Bonnet House curator Stephen Draft to hear about the dreamers and schemers of Fort Lauderdale. 5 p.m. at 440 N. New River Drive East, Fort Lauderdale. $45, members; $55, non-members (includes two glasses of wine and light snacks).
954-653-1554, bonnethouse.org

August

1 Celebrate Family Day at NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale by exploring the exhibition From Within and Without: The History of Haitian Photography. Participate in Haitian-inspired art workshops, dance and learn about Haitian folklore and storytelling. 4 p.m. at One E. Las Olas Blvd. Free with admission. RSVP at 954-262-0204 or moareservations@moafl.org.

7-8 Symphony of the Americas presents its 24th summer music festival, Summerfest, hosting a European chamber orchestra for performances at the Florida Atlantic University Theater in Boca Raton (Aug. 7) and Parker Playhouse in Fort Lauderdale (Aug. 8). Concerts will feature the music of Vivaldi, Strauss, Mozart, Liszt and Offenbach. 8 p.m. Ticket prices vary.
954-335-7002, sota.org.

21 Enjoy a free performance of “The Symphonia Brass and Friends,” with music from Bach to Bernstein, by The Symphonia Boca Raton. Blankets and chairs are welcome; chairs will also be available to rent. Food and beverages available for purchase. 7:30 p.m. at Mizner Park Amphitheater, Boca Raton. 561-544-8600, mizneramphitheater.com.

18 Lipstick Lounge, an evening of decadent confections, cocktails, a silent auction and the ultimate in beauty and fashion, all to raise funds for breast cancer victims and their families. 8 p.m. at Gallery of Amazing Things, Dania Beach. $65 in advance; $85 at the door. Glam-A-THON.com.

SAVE THE DATE

Oct. 17 Glam Doll Strut, a fun and festive walkathon to raise funds to support breast cancer victims and their families in our community. Men, women, kids – and dogs – are welcome to form teams, dress in their most fabulous fashions and strut their stuff before the celebrity judges. 11 a.m. at Esplanade Park in downtown Fort Lauderdale. $45. Glam-A-THON.com.